Paper short abstract:

This paper examines some recent contributions of life and human scientists in regard to the evolution of human cooperation, as well as their potential moral and political interpretations.

Paper long abstract:

For the last half century the insight that altruism can evolve under particular conditions, identified with "kin selection", has been a cornerstone of sociobiology. Recently, the issue has become controversial again. Some now insist on group selection as the driving force in evolution of cooperation. While some appear to associate group selection with only positive behaviors, others see ingroup-outgroup conflict as the inevitable other side of cooperation. Moreover, they typically regard group selection as requiring group extinction, which conjures up an image of our human past as a series of mass slaughters. Others, however, have launched the notion of gene-culture coevolution, as well as "cultural group selection", according to which culture has allowed humans to rapidly adapt to changing conditions. For them, "extinction" might involve such things as migration, or the adoption of new and better cultural habits from neighboring tribes. It is hard not to perceive moral and political implications of these different kinds of theorizing (see the recent sociobiology controversy). Though "cooperation" here looks better than "selfish gene theory", it might be best to be treading lightly. This paper examines the early 21st century's self-conscious drive toward knowledge integration among life and human scientists in regard to new interpretations of human evolution, as well as their potential moral and political interpretations.